House Passes Disapproval of President’s Debt Limit Raise

On January 18, 2012, the House passed House Joint Resolution 98, which simply says that Congress disapproves of the President exercising the authority to raise the Federal debt limit from $15.5 trillion to $16.4 trillion. The House had previously, in Senate Bill 365, approved raising the limit by $900 billion, on August 1, 2011, giving the President the authority to do so if needed. At that time, 66 Republican Representatives had voted against the measure.

The vote tally for this Resolution in the House was 239 – 176, with one Republican, David Dreier (CA-26) voting against it, and two voting “present”: Landry (LA-3), and Walsh (IL-8). The latter two had voted against S. 365, while Rep. Dreier voted for S. 365.